This thesis explores technologies of power that operate in British Columbia’s policy for consultation with Indigenous peoples about proposed land and resource decisions. I use the concept of settler colonialism to analyze the contents of British Columbia’s consultation and accommodation policy to assess whether and how the policy is oriented toward settler-colonial relationships. I analyze a British Columbia provincial policy document entitled Updated Procedures for Meeting Legal Obligations When Consulting First Nations Interim. By focusing on this policy document, I examine how power operates through settler state law and policy. I critically analyze three technologies of power that operate in British Columbia’s consultation and accommodation policy: the administrative law principle of procedural fairness, recognition politics, and the assumption of legitimate settler sovereignty. I consider how the policy’s focus on process reveals colonial power dynamics. Furthermore, I argue that recognition politics operate in the policy because Indigenous difference is recognized and some space is made for Indigenous actors to exercise authority, however the settler state retains final decision- making authority, which shows a colonial hierarchy of power. Finally, I consider how the assumption of legitimate settler state sovereignty that underlies B.C.’s law and policy is a source of authority through which the settler state has various types of power under the policy, including definitional power and final decision-making power. / Graduate

The thesis examines the political development in Southern Rhodesia 1960-1962 when two processes, the 1961 Constitutional process and the 1962 General Election, had far-reaching consequences for the coming twenty years. It builds on a hypothesis that the Constitutional process led to a radicalisation of all groups, the white minority, the African majority and the colonial power. The main research question is why the ruling party, United Federal Party (UFP) after winning the referendum on a new Constitution with a wide margin could lose the ensuing election one year later to the party, Rhodesian Front (RF) opposing the constitution. The examination is based on material from debates in the Legal Assembly and House of Commons (UK), minutes of meetings, newspaper articles, election material etc. The hypothesis that the Constitutional process led to a radicalization of the main actors was partly confirmed. The process led to a focus on racial issues in the ensuing election. Among the white minority UFP attempted to develop a policy of continued white domination while making constitutional concessions to Africans in order to attract the African middle class. When UFP pressed on with multiracial structural reforms the electorate switched to the racist RF which was considered bearer of the dominant settler ideology. Among the African majority the well educated African middleclass who led the Nationalist movement, changed from multiracial reformists in late 1950‟s to majority rule advocates. After rejecting the 1961 Constitution they anew changed from constitutional reformists to supporter of an armed struggle. Britain‘s role was ambivalent trying to please all actors, the Southern Rhodesian whites and Africans but also the international opinion. However, it seems to have been its own neo colonial interests that finally determined their position and its fault in the move towards Unilateral Declaration of Independence and the civil war was huge. On the main research question the analysis points to two reasons. Firstly, the decision by the Nationalists to boycott the election and the heavy-handed actions they took to achieve this goal created a white back-lash against the ruling party and the loss of the second vote advantage. Secondly, when the ruling party decided to make the repeal of the Land Apportionment Act a key election issue they lost not only indifferent voters but also a major part of its normal electorate. They threatened the Settler State‟s way of life for the white minority.

This thesis argues that the colonial ruling class developed its first White Australia policy in 1888, creating most of the precedents for the federal legislation of 1901. White Australia was central to the making of the Australian working class, to the shaping of Australian nationalism, and the development of federal political institutions. It has long been understood as a product of labour movement mobilising, but this thesis rejects that approach, arguing that the labour movement lacked the power to impose such a fundamental national policy, and that the key decisions which led to White Australia were demonstrably not products of labour movement action. ¶ It finds three great ruling class agendas behind the decisions to exclude Chinese immigrants, and severely limit the use of indentured “coloured labour”. Chinese people were seen as a strategic threat to Anglo-Australian control of the continent, and this fear was sharpened in the mid-1880s when China was seen as a rising military power, and a necessary ally for Britain in its global rivalry with Russia. The second ruling class agenda was the building of a modern industrial economy, which might be threatened by industries resting on indentured labour in the north. The third agenda was the desire to construct an homogenous people, which was seen as necessary for containing social discontent and allowing “free institutions”, such as parliamentary democracy. ¶ These agendas, and the ruling class interests behind them, challenged other major ruling class interests and ideologies. The result was a series of dilemmas and conflicts within the ruling class, and the resolution of these moved the colonial governments towards the White Australia policy of 1901. The thesis therefore describes the conflict over the use of Pacific Islanders by pastoralists in Queensland, the campaign for indentured Indian labour by sugar planters and the radical strategy of submerging this into a campaign for North Queensland separation, and the strike and anti-Chinese campaign in opposition to the use of Chinese workers by the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in 1878. The first White Australia policy of 1888 was the outcome of three separate struggles by the majority of the Anglo-Australian ruling class—to narrowly restrict the use of indentured labour in Queensland, to assert the right of the colonies to decide their collective immigration policies independently of Britain, and to force South Australia to accept the end of Chinese immigration into its Northern Territory. The dominant elements in the ruling class had already agreed that any serious move towards federation was to be conditional on the building of a white, predominantly British, population across the whole continent, and in 1888 they imposed that policy on their own societies and the British government.